Sunday, June 17, 2012

Hejira

In March 2010, Iraq held elections. Why? Nothing changed.

Violence continued today. AFP reports bombs killed 5 people and left thirty-four injured (deathly bombings were in Falluja -- two, al-Sahrqat -- two and in Kirkuk -- 1). AFP missed the Ramadi bombing. Alsumaria reports a Ramadi car bombing killed 3 people and left ten more injured. Nouri al-Maliki hasn't provided security. He can't even nominate someone to be Minister of Defense or Minister of Interior. He's never nominated that posts. He's a failure.

The only one Nouri's got right now is President Jalal Talabani. Ammer al-Hakim's kind of sidelined. Seems officials made it clear to him that he needed to serve ISCI and not Nouri and that they were bothered by the 'closeness' between him and Nouri. Press TV reports that Jalal is insisting he'll resign if Nouri "is given a vote of no confidence."

Is Jalal trying to stop the vote or speed it up?

He's not very popular of late. Not even with his own political party. So it probably wasn't smart of him to head for Germany today, as Alsumaria reports. Especially after he'd been instructed not to leave the country until the political crisis was settled.

Al Rafidayn notes that State of Law is insisting that a no-confidence vote in Parliament will be a coup. No, it would be following the Constitution.

For those who missed it, Nouri al-Maliki's refusal to honor the contract he signed -- the US brokered Erbil Agreement -- caused the political crisis. He used it to grab a second term as prime minister then trashed it despite the US swearing to the political blocs that the contract was solid and had to be honored. In the summer of 2011, Iraqiya, Moqtada al-Sadr and the Kurds began publicly calling for the Erbil Agreement to be followed. Nouri refused to.

April 28th, big-talking Jalal met with Moqtada, Iraqiya, KRG President Massoud Barzani and others as they planned a no-confidence vote. The signatures were collected. 176. But Jalal refused to turn them over to Parliament. Two Saturdays ago, he announced he wasn't going to.

He thought that would stop everything. His betrayal stopped nothing. The move then became for Nouri to be called before Parliament and questioned. And the best Jalal has to stop this effort? Threatening to resign. He's had two terms. He's nearly 80 and in poor health. He needs to step down. And if he does, his precious son becomes very powerless. Let's hope that million dollar house outside DC feels like home. The way things are going, he might not be welcome back in the KRG.

I'm traveling in some vehicleI'm sitting in some cafeA defector from the petty warsThat shell shock love away
-- "Hejira," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her album of the same name

The number of US military people killed in the Iraq War stands at 4489. AP notes that a Baghdad mortar attack today killed 2 people and left fifteen injured.

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